Operation Ironman: Dog Personalities

OK So I was up this morning at 4AM. Why? Was it A mega workout I had planned? Or maybe I decided to kick the trend lately of going to bed early and was out with Retno dancing the night away? No

I am up because we are dog sitting for this evening a little terrier pup. I can tell you that she is a cute little thing, but at this very moment, she is not so cute.

She is not truly housebroken, not crate trained and has apparently been inadvertently trained to whine whenever she wants something, which is always.

Now, so you understand me. I love dogs. In fact I have 3 of them:

Simba who if you follow my Blog you all know, and is in fact on her way to becoming a Multi sport athlete herself in the upcoming Doggie Du.

Buddy, the Cocker Spaniel. And,

Cookie The Maltese.

We even have a 4th unofficial dog of the house, that we are taking care of for 2 months because her owner is on tour ( chef for a band) that is

Dali the Pit bull.

Because we have so many dogs the rules are pretty firm on a few things, in order to keep the house from being a, well a dog house.

This is what we require for us to take care of a dog. It pretty simple:

they cannot damage any furniture by chewing, and
they have to be mostly house broken, if not house broken then they must be crate trained.

This has worked out nicely for us and has kept things manageable for us. This dog however has turned out to be an exception. She is a neurotic little city dog that has not been properly house broken AND not crate trained. So We decided we cannot have her running all over the house peeing and pooping, especially since we were up till midnight cleaning, for a party we are having today. So I walked her at midnight and then put her in a crate. She slept maybe 1 hour before she wanted out. Then the whining began.

Normally, a dog will do this for a bit, but eventually fall asleep. Not THIS puppy. She is actually neurotic and gets worse. However I know once you give in you are training her to continue because she will get her way. So we did our best to ignore her. we put her in another room along with Simba( who likes to sleep alone) so she would not feel alone. Nothing, it just got worse. Until finally at 4AM neither of us were sleeping and I decided to just get up.

Now I tend to associate the dogs I take care of with People. Buddy is a middle aged guy who at times goes for a fun run around the block, but who mostly likes to stay home and watch TV. Cookie is a little princess who requires to be carried where ever she goes. Now I guess because spend the most time with the active dogs I actually have images for them. SInce they happen to be female I have associated them with Women. So here is my breakdown.

Simba is athletic and beautiful. long flowing fur, feathered it seems always just right. Never afraid to get herself dirty and somehow still looks good at it. If she were a woman I see her as perhaps Liz Hatch the pro cyclist:

Dali, is a beautiful Pit Bull. With striking colors. She is young, energetic and often gets herself into trouble because of it, but you feel she will grow out of it. I see her as Lindsey Lohan: